1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to user interfaces for querying databases, and more particularly to graphical user interfaces providing for graphical query construction and result presentation.
2. Background of Invention
Conventionally, database query and retrieval systems perform several basic types of retrieval operations. In a relational model, these include restricting operations that retrieve from a set of records, a subset of records that satisfies specified conditions. For the purposes of the present invention, restricting operations are referred to as "refine" operations, and may be further categorized as either filter or tag operations, depending on how the resulting information is displayed to the user. In a filter operation, only the retrieved subset of records is displayed to the user; in other words, the operation filters a subset of records from a larger set of records. In a tag operation, both the original set of records and the retrieved subset are displayed, but the retrieved subset is visually distinguished within the context of the larger set of records.
Various approaches have been made to providing graphical user interfaces for database systems. At best, these user interfaces focus solely on the problem of query construction, and as a result provide only graphical tools to construct queries for the database. Existing approaches have a number of significant difficulties:
Conventional systems do not provide the visual metaphor of the filtering and tag operations. Conventional systems do not recognize the distinction between filtering and tagging, and hence provide no visual distinction between the different presentations of filtering and tag operations.
Conventional systems provide little or no graphical visual feedback about the status of the filtering or tag operation.
Conventional systems typically do not provide a drag-and-drop mechanism for visually constructing refining operations using direct manipulation. Typically, the user must type in the criteria or parameters for each operation.
Conventional systems require the user to leave one window and go to a dialog box to define query parameters, and thereby do not provide a single integrated user interface for both query construction and result presentation.
Conventional systems do not support multiple concurrent tag operations using multiple tagging criteria. This prevents the user from seeing and interpreting the results of several different tag operations simultaneously. As a result, the user must iteratively perform tag operations.
Conventional systems do not provide graphical, qualitatively interpretable feedback of the quantitative effects of applying filters and tags to data directly integrated in a single visual space with the query construction representation. Rather, conventional systems merely return data results in a separate visual space. At best, query results are provided in graphical format, such as a bar chart, pie chart, or the like, but this graphical representation is unrelated to any visual metaphor or representations used for query construction.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an improved, integrated, direct manipulation user interface for graphically constructing database queries and presenting query results using a common visual metaphor and graphical representations for query construction and result presentation.